


Hostile emotions

by Ornery Otter (Greiver_Dhark)



Category: Naruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23981794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greiver_Dhark/pseuds/Ornery%20Otter
Summary: So I’ve seen plenty of fics that reference Naruto and/or the Kyuubi as able to sense emotions from those around them. I thought I’d take a look at just what that might mean. This is an unfinished short however, because I couldn’t take it as far as I wanted to go.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	Hostile emotions

There was really no way they could know, he consoled himself at night. 

(Except there was, if only they listened. But nobody ever listened to him.) 

It wasn’t like there was much anyone could do about it anyway. 

(Except they could, even if it was just a band-aid on a bigger problem.) 

At least it was a useful skill, if he learned to get used to it. 

(But at what cost.) 

When Naruto was very young, he’d thought that what he experienced was normal. He’d thought he was normal. He’d learned late that he wasn’t of course, and that the way people treated him wasn’t either, but it took a long time and this... this part took longer. 

After all, who was he going to ask? 

Jiji didn’t like it when he asked questions about himself. About why people treated him bad, or how he could work around them to get what he needed done. Jiji definitely didn’t like it when he asked about how things were for ‘normal’ people. People who had parents to do things for them and didn’t get overcharged or refused service when they went shopping. He just got sad, and quiet, and ended up cutting their time together short. Naruto didn’t want that so he stopped asking questions that’d make the old man sad, even if it meant he’d never find out the answers. 

So it took a long time for Naruto to realise that not everyone was able to feel emotions the way he could. Sure they could perceive those emotions the same way anyone could, looking for tells in their words or behaviours or expressions, but that wasn’t how Naruto could tell. He could feel what they were feeling without even looking at them. He could smell it. 

Such a shame it was then, that Naruto had spent his childhood surrounded by those strange nin with animal masks, the only people who didn’t consistently hate him. 

How was a child meant to learn what was normal after all, but to refer to their own experience? Naruto learned that the majority of people who wouldn’t hurt him felt guilty and sad all the time, along with something...else. Something that didn’t feel quite sane. 

In a way, feeling their sharp emotions was better than those of the orphanage matron or strangers as a child, who loathed him and feared him so intensely. The guilt, anger and unstable feeling people that stalked him and protected him most of his life were a comfort in a world where he had so few. Despite the unhappy nature of their feelings, the animal-masks always protected him, even if it was just to come closer and warn away the matron or the more aggressive strangers he met while outside. Sometimes the animal masks even held his hand or carried him back to his room! They kept him safe so he kept close to them when he could. 

So it should be of no surprise that Naruto became accustomed to such people and sought them out for himself. It was rare for those animal-faced watchers to hate him the way that everyone else did (though it was much scarier when they did) so he began to associate them with safety, and he began to associate that special blend of emotions with safety too. He knew he could go to them and they’d protect him, even when they weren’t wearing their strange masks. 

He had tried to approach the ANBU as he later learned they were called, but most of them didn’t seem to like it especially when he did so while they were wearing their masks. They felt unnerved and uncomfortable so he stopped doing it before long, not wanting them to feel that way. When he’d tried speaking to one of them when they were wearing normal clothes they had pretended not to know him, though at least they hadn’t treated Naruto the way most people did. He didn’t understand why they were doing it, but Naruto didn’t understand a lot of things so he just accepted it. Those nin probably hid their faces for a reason though so he didn’t press them on it even though he wanted to, but either way he never came to harm when they were around, mask or no mask. 

There was one animal mask who had responded nicely to him when they weren’t wearing their mask, and that person became Naruto’s newest favorite person. Her name was Mitarashi Anko, and she was so scary that everyone did whatever she wanted. She was scary in a different way to Naruto, he thought. Naruto was scary and weak, but Anko was scary and strong. Nobody said anything bad to her face, and anything they said behind her was quickly rescinded when she challenged them on it. It was interesting to watch people interact with her. 

Naruto liked her. 

She kept her distance when she wore her mask, but when she wasn’t wearing it she didn’t mind if he approached her without needing to. He tried it once, when he didn’t need her protection, just wanting to say hello and have someone maybe say it back instead of spitting in his face. She roped him into eating dango with him – he'd never had it before and she’d bought him one of every flavor. It wasn’t as good as Ichiraku’s ramen of course, but in some ways it was better because he wasn’t eating it alone. 

Anko never approached him herself though and she told him she wasn’t allowed to. It was one thing if Naruto came to her, she said, but she wasn’t allowed to start it herself. So each time it would be Naruto who found her and if she wasn’t busy she’d spend a little time with him, teaching him things or sharing tips, even if Naruto doubted throwing dango sticks into funny shapes or words was all that useful a skill. He didn’t have many skills so even a useless one like that was something new for him, something he could say he was able to do. Besides, even his teachers at the academy didn’t care to teach him like Anko-nee was, so he’d learn any lesson she wanted to teach just because she was happy to teach it to him. 

Spending time in Anko’s presence though, it didn’t take long for him to hear it. 

“Bat shit crazy bitch.” Someone muttered from across the room. The man promptly wet himself when Anko’s latest dango stick appeared buried in the wood of the chair between his spread legs, just barely missing a delicate piece of anatomy. 

And so Naruto learned that the nebulous emotion he’d never quite understood, the one that clung to many of the nice animal-masks, was apparently called ‘batshit crazy’. It might be a bad thing for most people but for Naruto it had always been a good one. It’d always felt a bit weird and unstable compared to regular emotions – it was more like an emotional distortion than an emotion itself, but it didn’t matter in the end. It signified protection from those who’d hurt him, even if it also meant that protector was a bit weird. It wasn’t as though Naruto had any idea what normal truly was. 

Through Anko it should come as no surprise that he encountered other scary people. They rarely felt as scary as they looked though, and definitely not as scary as other people seemed to treat them. Naruto understood that – so many people were scared of him too. Even though Anko’s friends seemed intimidating and weren’t very welcoming they didn’t feel like that angerfear he was so used to, so he wasn’t deterred. Even Ibiki-san, who was HUGE and had this gruff, deep voice that made him (and everyone around him it seemed) tremble and want to edge away. Ibiki had a sliver of that same sharp insanity that many of his ANBU watchers did, but he felt so sharp and in control of himself he was the most restrained sort of insane Naruto had ever felt. It was amazing and Naruto found himself longing to be as strong and scary as them. 

Few of Anko’s friends had a problem with him coming around, especially the ones who felt sharp like that. He didn’t want to wear out his welcome though so he didn’t bother her all the time, but he could tell from her feelings that sometimes she let herself be seen by him just so they could hang out or she could introduce him to someone. Sometimes those people taught him little tricks like Anko-nee had, or had advice about who to go to with certain problems he had. It was because of them that the next time his landlord turned off the hot water he knew who to go to to file a report about it, and his landlord hadn’t pulled near as many stunts like that on him since.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N Sorry for the abrupt ending here - I had lots I wanted to cover like recognising Kakashi as ANBU and the like, but I really struggled with getting even this much on paper.   
> I never got to writing that far since this was just a short idea, but this was partly spawned by the thought of an empathic Naruto encountering Zabuza and Haku – getting a read on their emotions would subvert almost all of Zabuza’s intimidation tactics and Naruto would likely feel safe because he’d read similar to the ANBU. I wondered how that encounter would go – with Naruto very much at risk of actual death but certain that he couldn’t be safer and Zabuza was just playing, like Anko would. Unfortunately I struggled to write that far so am just posting this much instead.


End file.
